Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
do-it-yourself

playhouse update

Despite the weather, we’ve been working our butts off on the playhouse. We’re not as far as I hoped we’d be at this point, but we still have a good shot of completing this before Jake’s birthday. Even if it isn’t complete, I suspect that only minor stuff–like trim–will be left. Close enough. At this point, the structure is built and the siding is up. Up next: some painting and staining. After that, we’ll shingle the roof.

Jake still doesn’t have a clue. He sure is gullible. 🙂 I really think he’ll like the playhouse. I mean, who wouldn’t?

food & drink

wine update

Last weekend, Brian and I bottled two batches of wine–Pinot Noir and Mataro-Shiraz. Both were quite tasty. This bottling came just in time–my wine racks were starting to look rather bare. But, that problem has been solved as I put the wine on the racks yesterday.

I have two more batches going at the moment–Chardonnay-Viognier and Riesling. We’ll probably be bottling those next month. Not sure of the exact schedule…

I have one more kit that hasn’t arrived, an Australian Petit Verdot. I’ve never heard of this type of wine, so I’m looking forward to trying it. I won’t be making that one until the summer, though. I’ve decided that I’m definitely making strawberry-zinfandel this summer and I always like to have two batches going at once (it takes less time to bottle two batches at once versus two batches separately), so I’ll make the Petit Verdot after I get the strawberry-zinfandel started.

This concludes this week’s wine update.

movies

what’s eating gilbert grape

You might think it’s his mother, but it’s not.

Brian and I caught this flick on HBO the other night. I rather liked it. Now that I’m on the Johnny Depp bandwagon, I’ve been watching a lot of his movies from years ago. They’re all pretty good. Leonardo DiCaprio was also quite impressive playing Johnny Depp’s mentally retarded brother. The story was about a dysfunctional family. For some reason, those types of stories are always interesting to me. So, if you like this type of story and you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend it.

motorcycles

dirt

The gods must be smiling down upon Brian. Not only did his motorcycle! motorcycle! motorcycle! arrive this morning, but it is not raining–the sun is even shining. So even though we’ve barely just begun working, we’re taking a break so he can ride up and down and up and down the street. We got an earlier start than expected so I’m not complaining–yet. But, our help is not able to make it today (because he is having back problems) so I suspect Brian will be taking more than his share of “breaks” throughout the day.

I’ve given him the biker moniker of “Dirt”. You can’t have a Harley and not have a biker name. Henceforth he will be known as Brian “Dirt” Law. He got this name for three reasons: 1. sometimes he just really needs a shower; 2. it seems like he ends up having to move a few tons of earth every year for our projects (maybe that’s why he needs a shower?); and 3. dirt is a phrase used to describe a bunch of individual tattoos on someone (because it makes their arm look “dirty”). while this does not apply to Brian (he has what you call a sleeve, not dirt), it’s still kinda funny.